The present invention relates to novelty hats, and particularly to a hat including a miniature basketball net.
It has previously been known to attach a miniature basketball goal to the front of a ball cap, as a novelty item. In one such novelty item a miniature backboard of hard transparent plastic was fastened to the front of the crown of such a hat, and a miniature basketball goal including a self-supporting rim of molded plastic and a net fashioned of small-diameter textile cord was mounted on the backboard.
In another prior art version of such a novelty item, an opening is defined through the visor of a ball cap, and a net fashioned of small-diameter textile cords is fastened in the opening in the visor by stitching similar to buttonhole stitching. Both of these previous versions of such a novelty hat, however, are prohibitively expensive to produce and market profitably.
In order to keep from losing a miniature ball intended for use with such an attached miniature basketball goal, one prior art cap has the ball tethered to the cap by a small cord. Such a cord interferes with use of the ball and goal for a game of athletic skill. Without a tether, however, the ball is likely to become separated from the cap and be lost.
What is desired, then, is a novelty hat including a miniature basketball goal which can be manufactured at a low enough cost to be profitably marketable, and preferably including a mechanism for preventing loss of the ball when necessary, without interfering with the ability to throw the ball and to catch it in the goal.